Table of Contents

This study is provided by ICPSR.
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Faculty at Work, 1988-1989: [United States] (ICPSR 9713)

Principal Investigator(s):
Blackburn, Robert T.;
Lawrence, Janet H.

Summary:

The purpose of this survey was to assess the current working
conditions for full-time faculty in the United States and to explore
the ways in which those conditions affect the teaching role. A
secondary purpose of this project was to create a database to serve as
a foundation for identifying and studying incentives most likely to
motivate faculty members to explore alternative ways of teaching. A
cognitive motivation model was used to predict faculty behaviors
related to teaching, research, scholarship, and service. Faculty
surveyed were from three fields and eight disciplines: the humanities
(English and history), natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and
mathematics), and social sciences (political science, psychology, and
sociology). Institutions excluded from the survey included specialized
institutions as designated by the 1976 Carnegie classification,
vocational and technical schools, two-year branches of universities,
and institutions less than ten years old. Full-time faculty were
sampled in the remaining Carnegie types, and stratified by level (I or
II) and by control (public or private). Survey items include
demographic information, questions about institutional priorities, and
a series of questions designed to elicit perceptions of the skills,
values, and personality predispositions that characterize the valued
professor on the respondent's campus. The unit of analysis is full-time
faculty (faculty with a 50 percent or greater faculty appointment in a
department) in tenure-track positions.

The purpose of this survey was to assess the current working
conditions for full-time faculty in the United States and to explore
the ways in which those conditions affect the teaching role. A
secondary purpose of this project was to create a database to serve as
a foundation for identifying and studying incentives most likely to
motivate faculty members to explore alternative ways of teaching. A
cognitive motivation model was used to predict faculty behaviors
related to teaching, research, scholarship, and service. Faculty
surveyed were from three fields and eight disciplines: the humanities
(English and history), natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and
mathematics), and social sciences (political science, psychology, and
sociology). Institutions excluded from the survey included specialized
institutions as designated by the 1976 Carnegie classification,
vocational and technical schools, two-year branches of universities,
and institutions less than ten years old. Full-time faculty were
sampled in the remaining Carnegie types, and stratified by level (I or
II) and by control (public or private). Survey items include
demographic information, questions about institutional priorities, and
a series of questions designed to elicit perceptions of the skills,
values, and personality predispositions that characterize the valued
professor on the respondent's campus. The unit of analysis is full-time
faculty (faculty with a 50 percent or greater faculty appointment in a
department) in tenure-track positions.

Access Notes

One or more data files in this study are set up in a non-standard format, such as card image format. Users
may need help converting these files before they can be used for analysis.

Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
Please log in so we can determine if you are with a member institution and have
access to these data files.

Produced by the National Center for Research to Improve Post-secondary Teaching and Learning, Ann Arbor, MI, 1989.

Methodology

Sample:
Stratified random probability sample representing full-time
faculty in each of eight disciplines and in 17 Carnegie types of
institutions in the United States.

Data Source:

self-enumerated forms, and personal interviews

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: